The end of the BBC's international teletext service

The BBC's international teletext service on BBC World News TV is closing today, 2nd October, according to an onscreen message on page 100.

A key part of the BBC World News Text service was the news section delivered from the BBC's domestic teletext service, Ceefax.
Ceefax is closing down this month along with the last analogue BBC services in Northern Ireland as part of the UK's digital switchover, therefore the facility to relay Ceefax News onto BBC World News Text will no longer be available. Ahead of Ceefax's demise this month, its own service has been severely reduced in scope over the past years, and content on the BBC Two version of Ceefax ends next week.

BBC World News viewers are being advised to go to the BBC's international news website at bbc.com/news instead.

A brief history of BBC World Teletext
The BBC's international teletext service started life with the name "BBCfax" on BBC World Service Television. Following the split of international programming between BBC World and BBC Prime in 1995, the BBCfax service ended, and during December 1995 a "coming soon" caption heralded a new service that launched at the beginning of 1996. The new Intelfax-operated service contained advertising, plus world sport and business news but very little in the way of news, apart from page 101 until the summer of 2000, when Ceefax news pages 102-124 were surprisingly added to the service, resulting in Sports news moving to page 130.

The BBC's teletext service was distributed on analogue
outlets of BBC World and BBC Prime in Europe only. Content from the teletext service could be seen worldwide during BBC World's breakfillers between April 1997 and January 2002.

BBC World Text and Prime Text ceased in early 2002, only to be replaced by a cut down service on BBC World containing programme listings and Ceefax's news section. This cut down version, devoid of the the commercial elements under Intelfax's tenure, survived until today.

http://teletext.mb21.co.uk/gallery/ceefax/more.shtml contains screenshots of the various services, including screenshots from March 2000 when BBC World Text was nearly at its prime - just months short of the Ceefax news pages being added to enhance the one-page news on 101.

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